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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25789975">All Our Deeds Sure Find Their Ways</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed'>mytimehaspassed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fever of Light [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Immortality, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Sexual Content, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:55:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25789975</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They stay in twin boarding houses on opposite sides of the Wall, leading Republikfluct missions through Checkpoint Charlie, well before Reagan’s speech at Brandenburg Gate.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fever of Light [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870885</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>253</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All Our Deeds Sure Find Their Ways</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They stay in twin boarding houses on opposite sides of the Wall, leading Republikfluct missions through Checkpoint Charlie, well before Reagan’s speech at Brandenburg Gate. Nicky and Joe choose a room with a view of the Kurfürstendamm Café Kranzler – “Just so we can keep up with the latest kaffeeklatsch,” Joe says, perfect accent, winking at Nicky as he turns away from the scope of his M40 – and they sleep during the day and work at night, and they don’t see Andy and Booker for days, for months, dead dropping false papers and typewritten letters into mailboxes, hoping that everything goes to plan. </p>
<p>Joe likes the advantages of the West, tells Nicky that he’s gotten used to the busy streets and the friendly faces and the shops that overflow with apfelstrudel and Black Forest cake, and in the late afternoon when the sun starts to creep across the hardwood floors and into their bed, he kisses the hollow of Nicky’s throat to wake him, whispering in this voice that’s half serious and half not, that he wouldn’t mind waiting out his destiny here, in bed with Nicky, warm sheets and rainy Sunday mornings and that excellent black coffee from down the street. And Nicky will wince at the open curtains and the too-bright light and bury his face into Joe’s shoulder and tell him in this tired, sullen voice that he would love to, he really would, if only he could have just a few more minutes of sleep. And Joe will laugh, just like he always does, a rumble that builds in his chest and then lifts out of his throat, and Nicky will smile despite himself and graciously accept kiss after kiss after kiss, leaving his dreams behind. </p>
<p>Between fatal emigrations, they accidentally adopt a stray they find in the alleyway behind their building, a skinny orange tabby with an M on its forehead for Muhammad, and Joe names him Katze just to be funny, but it sticks. Nicky sets out tins of tuna on the doorstep in the middle of the night and leans out of their bedroom window to make sure the cat eats it all, worried about the stark shadow of ribs poking through the fur and grime, and it becomes a habit that starts with Katze meowing loud enough to wake the neighbors and ends up with Nicky bringing him upstairs to their room. </p>
<p>Katze takes over the reading nook in the window, and Joe steals blankets from their bed and lays them out for more cushion, and within days it’s like he’s always been there, watching the people move in the street below, yawning and mewling and kneading the flesh of Joe’s thigh, eating the last few scraps of their breakfast or dinner directly from their plates. Joe takes him outside on walks with him sometimes, and Nicky brings his forehead to Katze’s and speaks to him in hushed Italian, making him promise to always keep Joe safe.</p>
<p>And, of course, Nicky doesn’t mind the West either, rather likes the mundanity of it all, Joe slipping on Nicky’s discarded clothes to fetch the (now evening) paper and coming back to bed to read it, humming low at the spots that trouble him, as Nicky places his chin on Joe’s shoulder and picks out the only words he knows, absently scratching the spot between Katze’s ears. They visit bookstores and go to the theatre and tour the Deutsches Museum when they can, and Joe talks excitedly about the art, his hands moving wildly in the space between them, and Nicky indulges him with the patience of a saint even though he’s heard all of it before, even though he was there, with Joe, in the same spot that some of these paintings were born. </p>
<p>They frequent La Belle for the Italo disco tracks, and end up flirting with the Americans more than dancing. The soldiers buy them drinks and look at them longingly, their sharp crew cuts and trimly shaped uniforms, and Joe leans down to whisper in Nicky’s ear, but no, Nicky says, with his mouth and his hands and the shake of his head, no, so instead Joe hooks two fingers into Nicky’s shirt and drags him into the bathroom to make him come with little more than his voice and the slight pressure of his palm, the bass of the music trembling across them like shockwaves.</p>
<p>Sometime after 1985, Joe gets bored and cuts his hair and shaves off his beard, and Nicky teases him endlessly, even though he loves the feeling of running his fingers close to Joe’s scalp, even though Joe’s beardless mouth yawning and biting across Nicky’s chest and belly and thighs makes the same marks that it used to, marks that bloom and then fade almost instantaneously. Joe pouts and asks him if he still loves him even without all of the hair, Nicky’s fingers on Joe’s naked cheeks, and Nicky shrugs and pulls him closer and says, “I guess you’ll just have to find out.”</p>
<p>They make friends with the students who live in the room across the hall, two young girls who giggle whenever they see Joe and Nicky come up the stairs, Katze not far behind. </p>
<p>Joe invites them over for dinner one night, trying his hand at a few traditional German dishes, and Nicky taste tests and makes an interesting face – Joe rolling his eyes heavenward, the laugh caught beneath his tongue – and suddenly Nicky misses his own traditions, his own mother’s cooking, even though it’s been centuries since he’s stepped foot in the city where he was born, even though it’s been longer than that since he last saw his family. And Joe must see the look on his face and understand what it means because he takes pity on him, sliding dirty hands across Nicky’s pressed shirt, fitting his mouth to the back of his neck, kissing the knob of his spine. </p>
<p>And the girls, sitting sunlit and pretty at Joe and Nicky’s worn, chipped dining table, blush and politely look away, sneaking glances only when they think they won’t be caught. And all of them eat Joe’s terrible food and drink bottle after bottle of wine for long enough to get properly drunk, and early the next morning, before the sun has even risen, but after the girls have left – their warm palms sliding up and down Nicky’s arms as if they could convince him to change his mind and let them stay – Joe lets Nicky fuck the frustration and hopeless homesickness out of him and into Joe, Joe’s knuckles white where they grip the headboard. </p>
<p>And afterwards, Joe says, breathless, “Better?” and Nicky kisses the dull, bloodless imprint of teeth on Joe’s shoulder until it disappears, and says, “Always,” his voice hoarse and small. </p>
<p>They know that it’s different for Andy and Booker in the East. They know that it’s different for all of them, Nicky tending to the children who come out of the tunnels with scrapes and bruises and wide, scared eyes, telling them in a few, broken German words that everything will be alright. They die many times, too many times, on the Baltic Sea or in the air, but mostly on the Wall, getting shot at by the GDR Border Troops as they climb the fence, a mess of blood and metal and the sharp swings of their torch light, Nicky dragging Joe through the dirt and concrete until he wakes up again, reaching instinctively for his gun. They know that this is what they’re here for, that this is what they do, but even they can’t help the fatigue that settles deep inside of their bones at times. </p>
<p>Even they can’t help the overwhelming need to take a break. </p>
<p>And that’s why it’s here, in the sweet overindulgences of West Berlin, that Nicky finds the ring. He isn’t looking for anything in particular, after all they’ve never really talked about what it means to be married without a certificate or acknowledgement under God, but the shop he finds is small and crowded, the smell of dust and old books drawing him in from off the street. It’s underneath a glass case, lit up with fluorescent lights: dull, worn silver, but intricate and masculine and entirely beautiful. </p>
<p>He asks the owner in his fragmented German if he can look at it, and the owner smiles brightly at him as he pulls it out, and Nicky thinks about earlier that afternoon, when Joe had slid his warm palm underneath his shirt, raking his blunt nails slowly, slowly across Nicky’s belly as he had turned in his sleep, thinks about the weight of Joe on him, behind him, as he slips the ring on his own finger and then slips it off again. </p>
<p>And he thinks about last night’s mission, too, and the taste of blood in his mouth, Joe’s bare, blurry face above his when Nicky had finally opened his eyes again, the sharp inhale as Joe had said, his voice wet and relieved, “Come on, let’s go,” the Italian quick to leave his mouth. </p>
<p>He thinks about what it would mean to live in a home with the love of his life long enough to witness the dawn of a new millennium, slipping the ring back onto his finger as he pulls out the last few marks in his pocket. </p>
<p>And of course, later that night, just as Nicky knew he would, Joe tells him that he is much too kind and generous, that Joe has never, ever deserved him, smiling and smiling as Nicky presents the ring to him just like he’s seen on their staticky black and white TV, velvet box and bended knee and all. And, laughing happily until he cries, thumbing the tears away from the corner of his eyes, Joe also tells him that he’s wrong when Nicky calls him the romantic one, because really it’s been Nicky all along, hiding this side of him under all of those mysterious silences. And Nicky can feel the embarrassment that lights him up from the inside, the faint blush that creeps along the bridge of his nose and flames his cheeks, and Joe places cool fingers on his red face and laughs again, and Nicky thinks that it’s a sound as beautiful as Joe is. </p>
<p>And Joe allows Nicky to slide the ring onto his finger, and it fits perfectly, miraculously, and Nicky sends up a prayer of gratitude from where he still kneels on the floor, brushing his lips over Joe’s knuckles until Joe pulls him up onto his lap and into the heat of his mouth. And Katze meows from his spot at the window, and Joe opens Nicky’s mouth with his tongue, and it’s this – the glint of silver and the rumble of Katze’s purr and this searing kiss – that Nicky thinks about when he thinks about their time in West Berlin fighting for reunification. </p>
<p>It’s this that he takes with him when they eventually leave, the music and the happy shouts of the citizens, and the Wall torn down by words and sledgehammers. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>After Germany, when Andy and Booker escape the East with scars that have healed quicker than they should have, after they change their names and move safehouses and Andy is sure that no one is looking for them, she suggests that they all separate again, for longer this time. It’s not a surprise, but it’s also not an ideal, and Booker is looking between them all, Andy and Nicky and Joe, and his face is worn as he says, “Sure,” his tone betraying the word. </p>
<p>Joe says, “Whatever you want, boss,” and slides an arm around Nicky, who nods, “Sì,” and leans back against Joe’s chest. The ring is cold where it meets his skin as Joe tucks his fingers beneath Nicky’s clothes, and Nicky watches the relief that passes over Andy’s face before she composes herself again, and all at once he sees her as she must see herself, and it’s painful, an ache that burns tight in his chest.  </p>
<p>Andy looks at them once more, a small smile fitting over her mouth, and then she’s gone, no goodbyes because she never says goodbye, because she always believes that they will find each other again. And then it’s Booker, nodding briefly, tightly, at them as he grabs his pack and leaves out the front door, his fingers curled around the bottle of whiskey that Andy had left behind. And then it’s them, alone, and Nicky feels the weight of Joe behind him, feels how they fit together, perfect puzzle pieces, and in that moment he understands. </p>
<p>After all, Nicky, more than anyone, knows what it is to carry the weight of lives in his hands. </p>
<p>Nicky, more than anyone, knows the price of immortality.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In Spain, they wait for the clock to strike midnight on Noche Vieja, a new decade, and when it does, Joe is up and pulling him out of the front door of their cottage and into the brisk January air, the string lights and the music and the people drinking wine and eating grapes from plastic champagne glasses. </p>
<p>Joe says, “To another one,” his breath escaping from his mouth, and Nicky inches two palms over the stubble on his cheeks and kisses him hard enough to draw blood. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>They move to San Francisco, to a small apartment in Mission Bay, and Nicky enrolls in college to learn English as a second (third? fourth?) language. Joe finds a job as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art before it moves South of Market, and he works at night while Nicky goes to school, and – coming home in the early morning, after Nicky has already gone to bed, Joe sliding quietly and softly into the space behind him, he always asks if he’s still awake, and when Nicky nods yes, his eyes closed and desperately clinging to sleep, yes – Joe tells him about all of the new things he noticed in the dark of the galleries while no one was around. </p>
<p>“The brushstrokes on La Femme au Chapeau,” he whispers into the back of Nicky’s neck, his voice something like awe. “The vivid colors,” Joe’s fingers plucking along Nicky’s bare chest, slipping smoothly beneath his shorts. “No wonder it was such a scandal.”</p>
<p>Or, “Vija Celmins, Nicky!” the ghost of his breath and the way that Nicky turns around, Joe’s nose bumping into his cheek before it’s replaced with Joe’s mouth, pressing slow, gentle kisses to his jaw. “The things that she sees in the stars!”</p>
<p>Nicky finds a job for himself, too, in a little bakery on Berry Street. He brings home the leftover focaccia and breakfast sandwiches and coffee for Joe, who thumbs the flour off of his cheeks and tells him that he hopes nobody has let him into the kitchen. Nicky rolls his eyes, and Joe kisses away his pout, and they’re like this for a long while, happy, normal, Nicky’s English getting better and better every day. </p>
<p>They bike the newly paved Bay Trail and drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and ferry out to Alcatraz Island, where Joe looks around and asks – pointedly, obstinately – about the Native American protests in the early 1970s and almost gets them booted off of the tour. Joe introduces Nicky to Thai food, and Nicky tries his best not to be disappointed with the Italian, and they both fall in love with the Irish coffees at Buena Vista, near the last stop of the cable car on Hyde, Joe drunkenly kissing him against the side of the building there as they make their way to Fisherman’s Wharf on unsteady legs. </p>
<p>In class, he meets a man from France who reminds him of Booker. He’s (infinitely) younger, and slightly better looking, but he carries around the same sort of sadness that Booker does, the look in his eyes, the way he shapes his mouth, and it’s more of a relief than anything else to feel as though Booker is still with them, that they are still somehow connected. He invites him over for dinner one night before class, and they practice English words as Joe cooks: apple, pear, pasta, sauce. </p>
<p>Joe speaks to him in fluid French, and Nicky follows most of it, Joe having taught him French before they even met Booker, before Napoleon and the Grand Armée and the winter spent in Russia, when Booker had been called Sebastien, when Booker had been killed and then killed again for his desertion. Joe smiles broadly and drops a light kiss on the crown of Nicky’s head when he moves past him, and Nicky watches the man from class watch them, the slow pull of his wine and the bob of his throat as he swallows, and Nicky recognizes the hunger in his eyes and looks away, reserved. </p>
<p>(It’s not as if they haven’t, it’s not as if he’s opposed, but it’s Nicky and it’s Joe, and – for most of time – that’s more than enough for him. </p>
<p>For most of the time, that’s all either of them needs.)</p>
<p>They eat and drink, and the man pulls something out of his pocket and it takes Nicky a moment to realize what it is, having seen it in so many forms before. The man lights the tip and inhales, slowly, slowly, holding the smoke in his mouth before letting it out, a circle that rises and dissipates above them. And Joe laughs and takes the blunt from him and inhales, too, hollowing his cheeks as he leans forward to press his mouth to Nicky’s, to blow the smoke into Nicky’s own mouth, the dry heat consuming him from the inside out. </p>
<p>They’re practiced, old hats, Joe and Nicky and the vices they have sometimes, the ways they have of tolerating such a very, very long life. </p>
<p>And suddenly Nicky remembers the opium dens in Asia like they’re back there again, Joe’s cool breath on his sweat slick skin and the memory of what it feels like to forget, the memory of the absence of pain, and it’s very near this in its own way, the laugh that bubbles up and out of him as Joe takes another hit and tilts his head back to blow it out. Joe presses against Nicky again, his tongue heavy in Nicky’s mouth, and the burning tip of the blunt catches on a strand of Nicky’s hair when Joe goes to slide his fingers over Nicky’s scalp, and it’s a quick flash against the side of his face before Joe puts the flare out with his bare fingers, and Joe laughs and apologizes and laughs some more, and the man sitting across from them slides his hand across the table and over to Nicky in this genuine, honest way, asking him if he’s alright, his mouth sweet and his eyes wide with worry, and of course, Nicky says, in English, in French, of course, and the kitchen smells like burnt hair and cannabis for a long time after that. </p>
<p>And, really, neither of them mind. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Andy comes back to them. </p>
<p>Just like she always does. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The dawn of the new millennium is fraught with fear, and Nicky and Joe stay in bed all morning, in a French chateau somewhere near where Booker was born. When the sun rises high enough that the room seems filled with light despite the drawn curtains, Booker knocks on the door and tells them that the world hasn’t ended yet, and Joe – his mouth otherwise occupied – grunts and rolls his eyes, and Nicky, breathless, his voice tight in his throat, calls out, “Merci, Booker,” and it’s quiet after that, the only sound being Nicky’s desperate attempts to hold in his cries, biting down hard on the pillow beneath him. </p>
<p>Andy doesn’t care for the turn of centuries, isn’t even phased by the turn of a millennia, but she indulges as they do, Joe ensuring that her champagne flute is always full as they listen to Booker tell stories about his childhood in the village, as they watch the presidential address on TV, as they eat caviar and oysters and goose, Joe and Nicky flushed and full and slightly drunk. They had hung mistletoe in the frame of the kitchen doorway, and Joe always sends Nicky for more food so that when he comes close – Nicky’s hands full of platters or cups or desert dishes – Joe can draw him mercilessly into a kiss, his fingers sticky with wine, Nicky’s cheeks blooming crimson. </p>
<p>Andy asks Booker to explain what a Y2K is for the fourth time, and Booker – exasperatedly, his tongue full of French words he doesn’t manage to say – finally catches on that she’s joking, and Andy laughs long and loud at that and teases him for the rest of the night, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders and pinching his cheeks like a baby. Joe tries to drunkenly toast them sometime near midnight, and Nicky leans over and places his lips close to Joe’s ear when he sits back down unsuccessfully, and says, in sweet Italian, “Better luck next millennium, my love.”</p>
<p>And Joe smiles wide and bright, and Nicky remembers that they have so many more lives to live after this one. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In Merrick’s lab, Nicky had felt the press of the gun to his mouth and then nothing. </p>
<p>After the darkness, when he wakes and sees Joe above him, the quick press of Nicky’s palms to Joe’s arms – an anchor – the relief that overtakes Joe’s eyes and mouth and brows before the mission does, Nicky swallowing back his emotions as though they are a tide he can cull, he thinks briefly about all of the deaths that have come before this one. And then it’s over, and they’re up, trying to find Andy and Booker and Nile among the dust and smoke that coats their clothes and skin and hair. </p>
<p>And then it’s the elevator and Nile’s long ride down, and then it’s the car and the safehouse and a quick change of clothes – Joe’s steady hands carefully, skillfully picking out the shards of glass from Nile’s hair – before it’s the pub, Booker’s exile sharp on their tongues. Nicky is the one who pushes, who rounds the number of years to an even one hundred because he knows that Booker will kill himself at least a few times before the century is up, through alcohol or drugs or by his own hand, and because he knows that the need for penance is ripe. And Joe watches Nicky watch him, Nicky’s face as blank as it is when they’re on a mission, a complete fabrication for the anger that freezes the entirety of his insides, Nicky as this solid and unforgiving and righteously livid thing, the anger that looks back at Joe and remembers what it was like to watch him die, and then die again. </p>
<p>He will live with this anger for as long as it takes, for as long as Booker is still alive, even if he and Joe are long dead, even if their destiny has run its course like Andy’s. He will live with this anger long after everyone has forgiven him, long after Joe has forgiven him, Nicky savoring his transgressions like the taste of blood in his mouth, his inability to pinpoint the exact moment when Booker decided to throw them to the wolves, his inability to protect the person that he loves the most in this world. </p>
<p>Joe finishes his beer and rises to get another one, and Nicky stops him with a few delicate fingers that encircle his wrist, and Joe is angry, that’s true, angry that Booker has put them in a position to be caught and fucking experimented on, but Nicky also knows that – given enough time, given enough distance – Joe will always relent. And Joe looks down at him and shakes his head slightly, no, Nicky’s fingers loosening their tight grip, no, he won’t say anything to Booker between here and the bar, and Nicky knows that, too, but he likes the reassurance, he likes the way that they can speak wordlessly to each other, having had a lot of practice between the Crusades and here. </p>
<p>He watches Joe walk away, and Andy must recognize the look on his face because she pushes his glass towards him and tells him to drink up. And he does, they do, sullen drinking broken only by the start of a point or the promise of a rebuttal, Joe’s voice always the loudest. </p>
<p>And, watching her stand beside Booker with an apology between her teeth, fiddling with a phone that she will never be able to use, Nicky thinks that – although Nile is still so young – she will end up being the better of them. In appreciation, he buys her another drink and passes it down the table when she comes back inside, and she smiles briefly at him, gratefully, and Joe says something offhand that makes her laugh despite herself, and Nicky promises himself to try harder – to do better – with her than he has with Booker. </p>
<p>He thinks that maybe now they will have the time to do it right. </p>
<p>He thinks that maybe now it’s better late than never. </p>
<p>And, later, after the decision has been made, after Joe has swallowed enough of his fury and fear to be present, to be prescient, after Nile has looked at each of them in turn, disappointed but unable to do anything about it, Andy touches his shoulder lightly and asks, when he looks up at her, “Ready?”</p>
<p>And he lies and says that he is. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In Copley’s house, he finds the photographs and newspaper articles and thinks that maybe Andy was wrong, that maybe they haven’t actually failed. </p>
<p>Joe turns to him and their eyes meet, and – for one small moment – everything feels like fate. </p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In Mexico, Joe draws him as red as a tomato. </p>
<p>Nicky pouts and tells him that it’s not funny when Joe finally lets him see the notebook he’s been sketching in all morning – the sun and sand and the waves crashing along the shore, Nile laughing and screaming as the tide pulls her under and then spits her back out, Andy slowly getting drunk off of mojito after mojito at the bar – and Joe smiles wickedly and says, “I only draw what I see, darling.”</p>
<p>And Nicky, the exact shade of red that Joe has illustrated, says, “You bought colored pencils just for this?” and Joe laughs loud enough that several people on the beach turn their heads. </p>
<p>It had started with an assignment from Copley in Mexico City, but quickly turned into a holiday, Nile lamenting the fact that she’s been on tour in the desert for so long, even glimpsing the ocean from an airplane feels like a vacation. They fly into Cancun International Airport and rent a house in Riviera Maya and play the part of tourists, visiting Chichen Itza and Xcaret Park and the ruins of Tulum in shorts and tacky t-shirts, in cheap sunglasses they bought in the hotel lobby for one hundred pesos. </p>
<p>Nile loves it, scamming her way around restaurants with the few Spanish words she can remember from high school, a vision in colorful sundresses and wide-legged floral jumpsuits. Andy and Joe and Nicky tell her stories of Spanish shipwrecks on the Yucatan Peninsula before it was even called that, and it takes her awhile before she realizes that they’re remembering and not just filling in the gaps of her world history. She sighs and tells them that she’ll never get used to how old they are, and Andy – straight-faced and languorous after a bottle of tequila – points her finger and says, “Show some respect to your damn elders, kid.”</p>
<p>They go to bars and dance in clubs, and sometimes Andy joins them, but mostly she doesn’t, so they take Nile instead, Joe dancing with her until the sun comes up, his warm hands large around her small waist. Nicky gets drunk more often than he usually does, leaves his guns behind in the room safe, sweats underneath the burning sun, eats and flirts and swims, smiling wide and brilliantly from behind the smear of sunscreen on his face, humming low and happily in his throat as he drops kisses on Joe’s brown nose and cheeks and chin. </p>
<p>They take long showers every night to wash away the salt of the ocean, Nicky licking wide stripes along Joe’s chest, along the place where his neck meets his shoulder, kissing and kissing and kissing, and Joe is beautiful like this, they’re beautiful like this, the waterfall showerhead and the cloud of steam that expands around them. Joe pins him against the cool tiles and drops slowly to his knees, and Nicky tells him in this choked-off voice, in this bitten-down moan that they will be late for dinner, but Joe just looks up at him from beneath his eyelashes, his smile wide and hungry, and asks him if he really cares. </p>
<p>They were here before, a long time ago. </p>
<p>It’s different now, though, the all-inclusive resorts that litter the edge of the jungle like bamboo shoots, tall and impossible to kill, shining metal and pane after pane of glass. They’re somewhat used to the differences now, after almost a millennia of traveling back to places they’ve lived before, they’re almost used to the fact that everything changes, that nothing ever stays the same. </p>
<p>Almost. </p>
<p>Copley calls them after the seventh day to ask if they’ve gotten sick of the ocean yet, and Andy hangs up on him and then plays dumb when he calls back, claiming to be bad with technology. Joe snorts quietly in the background, and Copley asks Andy if they’re ready for another mission, and she looks at all of them – Joe and Nicky and Nile – and sees the way that Joe reaches for Nicky’s hand, sees the tilt of Nicky’s head to the floor, a solemn prayer, sees the disappointment written plainly across Nile’s face, and shrugs and says, “Ask me tomorrow.”</p>
<p>They stay for another month before the draw of Copley’s altruism brings them back to London. There, Andy climbs back into the role of leader as if she’d never left, and Nile braids her hair again and learns how to use Andy’s labrys, and Joe smiles and laughs and cooks and reads and sketches, sleeping behind Nicky with his palm over Nicky’s heart just like he always does. </p>
<p>And Nicky watches the clouds roll past the windows and misses what it feels like to burn.</p>
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